Robots are no longer in disguise and cars have more than meets the eye, thanks to a Turkish company called Letvision. Somewhat like Unicron searching for a replacement eye, Letvision have channelled the AllSpark to create what are essentially real Transformers. However, Letvision call their transforming robots Letrons. Functioning via remote control (since the sentience feature is probably being saved for the future) the BMW cars transform into a functioning robot. Yes, the car is a full-sized, real BMW. Which also makes for a full-sized, real robot once transformed, largely of the Autobot variety. In car-form, the automobile features a functional steering wheel and front and back security sensors, plus an electric engine. While they can “Autobots Letrons roll out” that the vehicles are technically remote controlled, currently does not allow them to legally be driven on the road in traffic. This could change in the future as Letvision develops ...

The Frankenburger, it’s alive. It’s alive! Technically, it’s not called a Frankenburger. It’s not really alive either. (Unless people count meat served blue, or steak tartare, as almost-living.) What this foray into culinary fusion is exactly, is best addressed with a question: What do you get if you cross a frankfurter with a hamburger? No, it’s not the Frankenburger, but so much potential is there… Rather it’s the Hamdog. And it is patented. Just don’t get too caught up in the differences between sausages, frankfurters, and wieners. Or the localisation of names with frankfurters interchangeably being called anything along the lines of frankfurts, franks, hot dogs, or hotdogs. It can be a confusingly mixed grill. Body parts sorted and allusions to Dr Frankenstein now probably aside, Australian inventor and entrepreneur Mark Murray has successfully spliced together a hotdog and a hamburger, calling it the Hamdog. He managed to patent the ...

Retro gaming fads come and go, and for video game companies re-releasing their back catalogue of classic games can be somewhat of a boon. Case in point, Nintendo. Not content with digital or physical game re-releases, the company is taking it a step further with the release of the NES Classic Edition later this year. The Nintendo Classic Mini comes with 30 classic NES games loaded on the mini console, and includes the option to view the games in their authentic and original 8-bit blocky pixelated glory. While Nintendo has apparently forever abandoned competing in the video game console arena purely based on computational power, at the time of its release the 16-bit SNES was an advanced piece of technology and generally more powerful than its 16-bit Sega competitor. What that has to do with miniaturising the NES is seemingly nothing, but for the fact that a tech-savvy Nintendo fan ...

Twitter has officially announced that media such as photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets will no longer be counted in the 140 character limit for tweets. This follows the change earlier this year of not counting links in the character limit. Say more about what’s happening! Rolling out now: photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters. pic.twitter.com/I9pUC0NdZC — Twitter (@twitter) September 19, 2016 This may only add to the challenge of selecting the best name for spam on Twitter. There were plans in May 2016 where Twitter considered effectively going long form with its content and character lengths. But that result has likely made a swansong, and the platform will stick with its amended 140 character limit in tweets for now.

For those who’ve gotta catch ‘em all, trawling through the source code of Pokémon GO can be as important as walking around and actually finding the pocket monsters hidden throughout the land. Don’t throw that caught Magikarp away, it might evolve into something far better later on (like a Gyarados). Combing through the source code with such an attitude helped to reveal the Pokémon and McDonald’s team-up before it was officially announced. Now the code has revealed something else: A Buddy System. Perhaps fearing the repercussions of: “If the buddy system can fail, I don’t know what to believe in.” This time, developer Niantic has been very quick to officially announce the Buddy System for Pokémon GO. Players will be able to select their favourite Pokémon from those that they’ve caught. The Buddy Pokémon will then follow their avatar around (much like Pikachu in the cartoons or in Pokémon Yellow). ...

Remoteness and islands often go together, and sometimes by design technology on said islands can be a bit hard to come by. Outside of the technologically advanced secret islands of evil geniuses that is. The Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic Ocean are channelling something more like Doctor Moreau than Dr. No in the unlikely alliance between sheep and Google. Bizarre but true, since the archipelago of the Faroe Islands is so remote, Google had not photographed them for Street View in Google Maps. Google does allow individuals to independently contribute photos to Street View, and some of the locals also aimed to get the company to come and photograph the islands. Meanwhile, a few other Faroese had a different idea: Put cameras on some of the 70,000 plus sheep living on the islands and let them photograph away. Google flocked to the idea, and has since loaned its official ...

The Empire now has its own version of R2-D2. The droid, called C2-B5, will be seen in the new Star Wars anthology film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which set for a mid-December 2016 release. Officially unveiled by Lucasfilm, C2-B5 (aka “the evil R2-D2”) naturally has a paintjob worthy of the Dark Side. As revealed on The Star Wars Show, Imperial astromech droid C2-B5 from Rogue One. pic.twitter.com/XCywIn2fAK — Star Wars AUNZ (@StarWarsAUNZ) August 31, 2016 More official news of all things Rogue One and beyond is covered in The Star Wars Show: Since things are going rogue amidst an anthology of interest, whether Dark or Light Side one Star Wars droid sidekick deserves another:

Actor Mark Hamill has apparently finished filming his Luke Skywalker part for Star Wars: Episode VII. Meaning it’s time to part with his Jedi beard. He tweeted as much, but may have also triggered the spoiler alert for his potential involvement in Episode IX. Haven’t seen my chin since May ’15, so #FarewellFacialFur & #ByeByeBeard (at least til #EpisodeIX) @popculturequest pic.twitter.com/gaScz1okk6 — Mark Hamill (@HamillHimself) August 30, 2016 Accident, out of balance gag, Jedi mind trick, or genuine spoiler? Realistically Hamill’s remarks may not be that big of a leak for Episode IX. Being Star Wars, if true, Luke Skywalker could appear as anything from alive, in flashbacks, or as a Force ghost. And since his beard was cut off, maybe Skywalker will get a new robotic prosthetic beard that’s kept as a hidden secret artefact for future Jedi to discover. No, that idea is probably about as welcome as ...

“Tell me, do you work? You will.” Cosplayer Julian Checkley has remarkably managed to combine both form and function into cosplay with his fully functional gadget-equipped Batsuit. Apart from obviously sporting the mother of all utility belts, his costumed efforts also managed to secure him a Guinness World Record for the “Most functional gadgets on a cos-play suit”. Numbering 23 isn’t some cryptic clue from the Riddler, instead it’s the number of fully functional gadgets on Checkley’s Batsuit. Maybe it’s not quite as large a number as Robin’s 356 “holy something” remarks, but 23 functioning gadgets should be more than enough to take even Adam West’s version of Batman safely camping. Batman lightening up, or darkening further, the DCEU movies may be another matter entirely. Besides, Checkley’s Batsuit likely beats the homemade version of the mecha-armour Batsuit with the hammers of justice. For those wondering, yes it is equipped with ...

Through a security flaw in the iOS software, hackers in the past week have reportedly been able to gain full access to everything on users’ iPhones. Apple has since released an update, and is encouraging all users to upgrade to iOS version 9.3.5 which can be done on iPhones (and iPads) via: Settings > General > Software Update, then selecting ‘Download and Install’ In a statement to The New York Times, Apple spokesman Fred Sainz said: “We advise all of our customers to always download the latest version of iOS to protect themselves against potential security exploits.” It’s reported that the iOS security flaws enabled hackers of compromised iPhones to gain access to users’ contacts, texts, emails, call history, passwords, and they could use spyware to hijack an iPhone to record sounds from it and track the user’s location. Hackers were also said to have been impersonating trusted companies such ...